Working diary of a Vancouver-based photographer, bookseller, art critic, contrarian investor and occasional mountaineer. Archives follow the current week's posts. Correspondence to pulpbook@gmail.com

Anodyne

Saturday, February 17, 2018

"In the end, the only thing that could create the necessary traction in our minds was the intimate loss of the things we loved." (Zadie Smith)
- posted by cjb @ 11:54 AM

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

"Heidi & Co. can replicate any creature, realistic or imagined, from photograph, computer image, conceptual sketch, or even just from written description. Any size from the tiniest mouse to a life-size horse, in any pose, or with clothing or costume, etc. If you can imagine it, Heidi can create it in plush for you!

You may also opt to have your plush replica include a hidden velvet inner encasement designed to accommodate ashes and serve as an unbreakable memorial urn.
Or your plush replica can be made into [a] riding rocker for a child!"
- posted by cjb @ 9:31 PM

I am a Canadian citizen and settler resident on the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

I write to you today with regard to Gerald Stanley’s acquittal in the shooting death of Colten Boushie.

Criminal trial verdicts are judgments on individuals’ actions at specific points in time, but they also send messages about the behaviors that the society that created those laws is willing to accept or condone.

Like my indigenous friends, and many other concerned Canadians, I am deeply offended and saddened by Stanley’s acquittal.

Stanley was acquitted by an all white jury, whose ethnic makeup was not reflective of the community in which the shooting occurred.

The jury verdict says, in essence, that the life of a young indigenous man is worth about as much as a coyote’s or a wolf’s, feral animals that can be put down if they stray onto settlers’ property.

The verdict has cheered Canada’s burgeoning population of alt-right activists, who now feel emboldened to attack and harass indigenous people everywhere in Stanley’s name.

The verdict also makes a mockery of federal and provincial governments’ attempts at reconciliation with indigenous people. Reconciliation for settler governments’ genocidal policies toward indigenous people must involve more than words.

When there is no justice for indigenous people, there can be no hope of reconciliation.

I urge you to appeal the Stanley verdict. The facts of the case dictate a different outcome. Indigenous people – indeed, all Canadians – deserve a more just and fitting verdict.